Friday, February 28, 2014

Dumb, Uneducated, And Eager To Deceive: Media On Religious Liberty: "In the aftermath of the abominable media coverage of Arizona’s religious liberty bill, an editor shared his hypothesis that journalists care about freedom of speech and of the press because they practice them. And journalists don’t care about freedom of religion because they don’t."

Obamacare Victims Are ‘Liars,’ Says Top Democrat - Yahoo Finance: "The data looks even worse for the “don’t believe your own lying eyes” messaging strategy. When the initial rollout of Obamacare took place, the Obama administrations oft-repeated claim that the currently insured would be able to keep their plans went out the window, as insurers were forced to cancel insurance for five to six million people under now-forbidden coverage. To this day, the Obamacare exchanges have only had four million sign-ups, with as many as 20 percent of those failing to complete enrollments.

This week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that another 11 million people with coverage from small-business group plans will see their premiums rise as a result of the law – 65 percent of all those with such coverage. "

Obamacare Victims Are ‘Liars,’ Says Top Democrat - Yahoo Finance: "It’s true that Boonstra’s story turned into a dispute when others looked into her claims. The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler gave the AFP ad two Pinocchios, noting that the premium decrease for Boonstra’s new plan (her existing plan, which she preferred, got canceled under Obamacare) added up to the out-of-pocket limit, negating her claims of extra expense. News media reported on that interpretation, and a Democratic incumbent filed a complaint with the FCC to force stations to stop airing the ad.

However, Boonstra disputes that interpretation, because while it might balance out by the end of a year, the immediate out-of-pocket expenses are much higher in the new plan – and there is no guarantee that the new plan will cover her current medication regime. In fact, they declined to do so when Boonstra tried to renew the prescription."

Russia admits that it has moved troops in Ukraine - Telegraph: "The soldiers, who wore no identifying insignia, refused to answer questions from journalists as they strolled up and down outside the airport.
The troops made no apparent attempt to interfere with the running of the airport or take over key infrastructure, contenting themselves with strolling up and down the car park at a leisurely place, apparently deliberately for the benefit of television cameras."

Thursday, February 27, 2014

My Way News - Russian moves raise stakes in Ukraine conflict: "Russia has pledged to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity. But the dispatch of Russian fighter jets Thursday to Ukraine's borders and drills by some 150,000 Russian soldiers - almost the entirety of its troop force in the western part of the country - signaled strong determination not to lose Ukraine to the West."

This is one of the problems I have with so-called "libertarian foreign policy" advocated by the likes of Rand and Ron Paul. I agree that the U.S. often makes missteps, and that sometimes exerting influence abroad makes us less liked in the world. But it also seems like it's not in U.S. interests to let countries with imperial intentions, like Russia, go unchecked.

"The leukemia patient whose insurance policy was canceled [and] could die without her medication, Mr. President, that's an ad being paid for by two billionaire brothers. It's absolutely false. Or the woman whose insurance policy went up $700 a month--ads paid for around America by the multibillionaire Koch brothers, and the ad is false."

"The leukemia patient whose insurance policy was canceled [and] could die without her medication, Mr. President, that's an ad being paid for by two billionaire brothers. It's absolutely false. Or the woman whose insurance policy went up $700 a month--ads paid for around America by the multibillionaire Koch brothers, and the ad is false."

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Piers Morgan’s Decline and Fall | National Review Online: "What distinguished him from successful and beloved British imports such as Alistair Cooke, Christopher Hitchens, and Craig Ferguson was not the voice but the attitude. Most Brits move to America because they adore the place — becoming “American on purpose,” as Ferguson gracefully puts it. Morgan, conversely, came for work and work alone — believing, as Simon Cowell told him, that his fortune lay in America — and he demonstrated a reflexive disdain for his audience that he never quite managed to overcome."

Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker recently called Justice Thomas’s silence “downright embarrassing.” But the real work of the Supreme Court is done in written opinions, and there Justice Thomas has laid out a consistent and closely argued vision."

Friday, February 21, 2014

Althouse: "Writes The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin, who probably never had any confidence in Thomas to lose. What Toobin calls "ludicrous," "petulan[t]," and "demeaning" behavior is simply Thomas's silence at oral argument. Toobin invites us to imagine all 9 Justices adopting Thomas's approach to oral argument and dictates how we'd all feel: We'd rightly, and immediately, lose all faith in the Supreme Court."

AP News : For Obama, a new sense of purpose in acting alone: "Yet the flurry of executive actions does seem to be having a cathartic effect inside the White House, which was in need of a jolt after a frustrating and disjointed 2013 that included the flawed rollout of Obama's signature health care law and a sharp drop in the president's approval ratings. Advisers who ended the year dispirited now appear buoyed by a new sense of purpose - and the prospect of working around a Congress that has long been an irritant to the president."

BRUCE: Mitt Romney, the new comeback kid? - Washington Times: "Even among my rather diverse circle of friends (liberals, conservatives, libertarians, Christians, pagans and even an actor or two) in the People’s Republic of Los Angeles, there’s an interesting reaction to the Romney of 2014, a sort of regretful melancholy."

The Corner | National Review Online: "A first Democratic senator has indicated he thinks it might be time to scrap Obamacare. While legislators should work to fix the law in the meantime, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia told Beckley’s Register Herald that he would support getting rid of the law entirely.

“I will vote tomorrow to repeal [the Affordable Care Act], but I want to fix the problems in it,” Manchin told an audience."

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Millennials Jump Ship over Obamacare Bait and Switch | The Fiscal Times: "As National Journal’s Ron Fournier reports from the survey’s findings a majority of those 25 and under in this survey of more than 2,000 would vote Obama out of office if they had the chance for a do-over. Among the entire group, the President’s overall job approval sinks to 41/54, just about the overall national average."

Video: ObamaCare enrollee can’t get doctor to see her « Hot Air: "In Sacramento, Nick Janes reports on the plight of Katherine Cadman, who eagerly signed up for an insurance policy through the state’s exchange — and then tried to use it to see a doctor. Doctors, however, are not anxious to see customers from ObamaCare plans, thanks to the lousy reimbursement rates:"

George Will: Is Ukraine the Cold War’s final episode? - The Washington Post: "Marx, whose prophesies were perversely predictive because they were almost invariably wrong, predicted the end of nationalism. Economic forces, he said, determine political, cultural and psychological realities. So capitalism, with its borders-leaping cosmopolitanism, would dilute to the point of disappearance all emotional attachments to nations. Ukraine’s ferment is an emphatic, albeit redundant, refutation of Marxism."

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

The Shrinking Imperialist President | National Review Online: "That’s a lesson Democrats would do well to ponder, because they are rhetorically giving Obama license to do whatever he likes. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D.,Texas) recently declared that the priority for her and her comrades should be to draft executive orders — not laws — for Obama to sign. Representative Xavier Becerra (D., Calif.) suggested on Fox News Sunday that the president could rewrite Obamacare at whim because the Constitution gives him the power to act during a national security threat. And of course, Senator Harry Reid (D., Nev.) blew up the filibuster rules for appointees."

At first, I was really bothered by the idea that the president assumed the power to rewrite Obamacare without an objection from the media. But then I realized, this could be a good thing. A Republican might win the next election, and thanks to the precedent Obama is now setting, the future president will have the power to delay implementation of Obamacare indefinitely.

But since gay and lesbian people have fewer children than straight people, a problem arises.

“This is a paradox from an evolutionary perspective,” says Paul Vasey from the University of Lethbridge in Canada. “How can a trait like male homosexuality, which has a genetic component, persist over evolutionary time if the individuals that carry the genes associated with that trait are not reproducing?”

Scientists don’t know the answer to this Darwinian puzzle, but there are several theories. It’s possible that different mechanisms may be at work in different people. Most of the theories relate to research on male homosexuality. The evolution of lesbianism is relatively understudied – it may work in a similar way or be completely different."

Suppose homosexuality is genetic. In the past, the "gay" gene was passed on because gays felt societal pressure to marry and procreate. With that pressure gone, the gene is not going to be passed along as frequently. The gay population will dwindle. A commenter on a prior blog pointed out that homosexuality could be a recessive gene, and, therefore, passed along without manifestation, making it much more resistant to extinction. But even so, our society's acceptance of homosexuality, if it is genetic, basically guarantees that the gay presence in the population will decrease, right? Or am I missing something?

Facebook: ""I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion, but I'm gay, and I don't think there's nearly as much discrimination as people claim. Don't get me wrong, I've experienced discrimination. But it hasn't been a huge factor in my life. I feel like a lot of people bring discrimination on themselves by getting in people's faces too much. They like to say: 'Accept me or else!' They go around demanding respect as a member of a group, instead of earning respect as an individual. And that sort of behavior invites discrimination. I've never demanded respect because I was gay, and I haven't experienced much discrimination when people find out that I am.""

The Corner | National Review Online: "I watched Mitt the other night. The documentary focuses on Romney’s interaction with his family during the 2008 and 2012 campaigns. It reinforces what we already knew about him: he’s a loving father and husband, very smart, and a fundamentally decent, modest, and public-spirited man. Beyond that, a few things struck me:"

Patrick Deneen on the Strong Versus the Ordinary | National Review Online: "Society today has been organized around the Millian principle that “everything is allowed.” It is a society organized for the benefit of the strong, as Mill recognized. By contrast, a Burkean society is organized for the benefit of the ordinary—most people who benefit from societal norms that the Great and the Ordinary alike are expected to follow. A society can be shaped for the benefit of most people by emphasizing mainly informal norms and customs that secures the path to flourishing for most human beings; or it can be shaped for the benefit of the extraordinary and powerful by liberating all from the constraint of Custom, mainly through the obliteration of Custom. Our society was once shaped on the basis of the benefit for the many Ordinary; today it is shaped largely for the benefit of the few Strong."

Cafe Hayek — where orders emerge: "Why is it morally OK for everyone in the process to be paid for their time, talent and expenses except the one person who makes it all possible? Hundreds of thousands of dollars go to surgeons, anesthetists, hospitals, etc., for a transplant procedure, but it’s morally reprehensible for the donor to receive a dime?

It’s time for the altruists to get over themselves. We cannot afford the price of their convictions."

Navarrette: Clarence Thomas is right about northern liberals - CNN.com: ""My sadness is that we are probably today more race and difference-conscious than I was in the 1960s when I went to school," Thomas told the audience. "To my knowledge, I was the first black kid in Savannah, Georgia, to go to a white (Catholic) school. Rarely did the issue of race come up."

Sunday, February 16, 2014

The Guinea Pig State | The Weekly Standard: " “Long Live Oregon,” promising coverage for the state’s “loggers . . . stay-at-home dads . . . and indie rock bands”—among other very Oregon vocations—yet now the exchange was so broken it had managed to sign up only 44 people in its first two months. The state was essentially telling thousands of Oregonians who had lost their health insurance under Obamacare, “Save yourselves!” "

Based on the arm bone of a 24,000-year-old Siberian youth, the research could uncover new origins for America's indigenous peoples, as well as stir up fresh debate on Native American identities, experts say."

Friday, February 14, 2014

Taxation and Representation | National Review Online: "“The Tom Perkins system is: You don’t get to vote unless you pay a dollar of taxes,” he said. “But what I really think is, it should be like a corporation. You pay a million dollars in taxes, you get a million votes. How’s that?”"

Facebook: ""We had an arranged marriage. It worked for our parents, it worked for our grandparents, and it worked for us. We met three days before our wedding, and it took us time to fall in love, but we are definitely in love."
"

When did you first realize you were in love?"
"One day, I realized that for the last several weeks, someone had been happy to see me every time I'd gotten home. And it felt really good.""

From Russia with Euphemisms | National Review Online: "“To eat your own children is a barbarian act.” So read posters distributed by Soviet authorities in the Ukraine, where 6 to 8 million people were forcibly starved to death so that the socialist Stalin could sell every speck of grain to the West, including seed stock for the next year’s harvest and food for the farmers themselves. The posters were the Soviet response to the cannibalism they orchestrated."

Heckuva Job Dept. | National Review Online: "Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was in direct contact with President Barack Obama at least 18 times between October 2012 and October 2013, including seven occasions where her draft calendar showed Obamacare as the topic of conversation.

The news appears to contradict her insistence that Obama was in the dark about problems plaguing the ill-fated healthcare.gov website in the months leading up to its October 1, 2013 launch."

Broaddrick gave us access to all the business and personal records she says she could find. We also checked public records, nursing home records and convention schedules.

And indeed there was a nursing home meeting at the Camelot Hotel in Little Rock on April 25, 1978. Further, state records show Broaddrick got credit for a nursing home seminar that was held that day, April 25.

So was Bill Clinton even in Little Rock on April 25, 1978? Despite our repeated requests, the White House would not answer that question and declined to release any information about his schedule.

So we checked 45 Arkansas newspapers and talked to a dozen former Clinton staffers. We found no evidence that Clinton had any public appearances on the morning in question. Articles in Arkansas newspapers suggest he was in Little Rock that day.

And remember the little building Broaddrick says Clinton pointed to just before the alleged assault in the hotel room? We checked that too, and in fact the Pulaski County jail was visible from rooms facing the river. It has since been demolished.

MALZBERG: Juanita Broaddrick. Wait a minute. The name Juanita Broaddrick. You don't know that name?

KING: Accused him of rape?

MALZBERG: Larry, with all due respect, that speaks volumes, Larry, volumes.

KING: Was he charged?

MALZBERG: I said he was accused. Larry --

KING: Okay, Steve, I accuse you of being a [inaudible] --

MALZBERG: If George W. Bush, if a story had come out from a woman while he was running for president, that he had raped a woman in college, you think you never would have heard of that woman, Larry? You made my point.

KING: I never heard of Clinton -- Steve, it sounds like you've gone off the top.

MALZBERG: Larry, Larry, Google Juanita Broaddrick. Larry, Lisa Myers of NBC News "KING: Steve, Clinton was one of the great presidents we have ever had. And what a president does -- I never heard of her.

MALZBERG: Larry, Lisa Myers of NBC News did a half hour sit-down with her at the time. Google it, look it up. I can't believe you do not know the name Juanita Broaddrick.

KING: I'll tell you. Start spreading the name Juanita Broaddrick around and see how many correct answers you get as to who is Juanita Broaddrick.

MALZBERG: Okay. And Kathleen Wiley said in the Oval Office she was assaulted sexually. Have you heard of her?

KING: If you are -- if you like these kind of things as conspiracies --

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

That's essentially what the Centers for Disease Control announced this week. The agency said Tuesday that it has greatly over-exaggerated the number of lives lost each year to obesity. After years of putting the figure somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000, the agency now says the net number is just under 26,000, meaning the government has been telling us obesity is fourteen times the threat it actually is, leading policymakers at all levels of governance to prescribe all matter of intrusive, expensive, choice-restrictive public policies aimed at addressing it. A Lexis search for "400,000" and "obesity" returns just under 3,000 hits. A search on "300,000" and "obesity" returns more than 3,000."

Facebook: ""My mom died when I was sixteen from cirrhosis of the liver. She had a really bad drinking problem, but I don't blame her, because she had an addiction problem and was dealing with the pressure of being a single mother-- my dad left the family when I was two. But my mom overcompensated for the guilt of drinking by spoiling me. And because she always gave me what I wanted, I'm finding it difficult to develop drive late in life."
"Wow, you're introspective."
"Yeah, therapy is going well.""

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

"Loud Music" trial | Fiancé Rhonda Rouer | Michael Dunn: "Next up was another strange character reference, a Don Moes. Moes had previously worked with Dunn some 15 years earlier, then after a 13 year lapse had worked indirectly with him again a couple of years ago. Moes testified that his knowledge of Dunn’s reputation is that of a preaceful man. Nevertheless, he came across as a character witness who really did not know Dunn well on any meaningful personal level."

DOJ’s Round-Two Brief in HHS Mandate Cases—Part 1 | National Review Online: "DOJ’s brief is replete with token expressions of respect for religious believers and religious institutions. Have in mind that this is the same DOJ that argued in the Hosanna-Tabor case that (as the Chief Justice summarized DOJ’s “remarkable view” in his unanimous opinion) “the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization’s freedom to select its own ministers” and that churches are instead limited to the rights that labor unions and social clubs enjoy. Yet DOJ now has the gall to claim that recognizing the religious-liberty rights of closely held corporations and their owners would “have the perverse effect of undermining the special place of religious institutions in our society” (p. 9; see also pp. 28-29)."

a. DOJ falsely claims, “There is no indication in RFRA’s text or legislative history that Congress meant the statute” to afford religious-liberty rights to for-profit corporations (p. 19). But the amicus brief filed by law professor Douglas Laycock (on behalf of the Christian Legal Society and other religious- and civil-liberties organizations) exhaustively demonstrates what the amicus brief of the Ethics and Public Policy Center also shows—namely, as Laycock puts it, that “Congress explicitly understood RFRA to protect for-profit corporations and their owners.” There is nothing in RFRA’s text that excludes for-profit corporations from its protections. And DOJ doesn’t even acknowledge, much less try to explain away, the express statements in a House report that make clear that RFRA applies to for-profit corporations. (See Christian Legal Society brief at 20; EPPC brief at 12.)"

Conservative Acquaintance Annoyingly Not Racist | The Onion - America's Finest News Source: "BROOKLYN, NY—Acknowledging that the man’s right-wing views are more nuanced than one might expect, 36-year-old liberal Diana Hardwick confided to reporters Tuesday that her conservative acquaintance Brady Daniels is, quite frustratingly, not racist. “We got to talking about immigration, and I really wanted him to undermine his argument for stricter border controls by saying something disparaging of Latinos, but apparently his opinions are based entirely on national security issues instead of race—which is super irritating,” Hardwick said of Daniels, who reportedly describes himself as a “strong conservative” on fiscal issues but, annoyingly, exhibits no racial biases. “It would be so much easier if I could just write him off as a bigot, but as far as I can tell he harbors no resentment or disdain toward people of color. For God’s sake, we argued every issue from states’ rights to income disparity but nope, he didn’t say anything even tacitly racist. Not once.”"

Monday, February 10, 2014

Washingtonpost.com Special Report: Clinton Accused: "Had NBC aired the interview during the Senate impeachment trial and the furor over Monica S. Lewinsky, it might have had a significant impact on the political climate. Whether the story has any lasting significance now, outside the context of any legal or impeachment proceeding, is unclear. NBC executives say the Myers report needed further checking and corroboration before it could be broadcast."

Sunday, February 9, 2014

The Hillary Papers | Washington Free Beacon: "“Goddamn Hussman needs to know that it’s his own goddamn fault; that he can’t destroy everybody from Ark. and everything about the state and not pay the price for his precious Richard [Arnold],” Hillary said, according to Blair’s account."

The Hillary Papers | Washington Free Beacon: "When Clinton finally admitted to the relationship after repeated denials, Hillary Clinton defended her husband in a phone call with Blair. She said her husband had made a mistake by fooling around with the “narcissistic loony toon” Lewinsky, but was driven to it in part by his political adversaries, the loneliness of the presidency, and her own failures as a wife."

George Will: President Obama’s magic words and numbers - The Washington Post: "Barack Obama, the first president shaped by the celebratory culture in which every child who plays soccer gets a trophy and the first whose campaign speeches were his qualification for the office, perhaps should not be blamed for thinking that saying things is tantamount to accomplishing things, and that good intentions are good deeds. So, his presidency is useful after all, because it illustrates the perils of government run by believers in magic words and numbers."

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Meet the Barack Obama of the Volokh Conspiracy: "hen-Senator Obama listed some of the challenges of the early 21st century, including: “Our constitutional system has been assaulted by an overreaching Executive Branch cloaked in secrecy and hostile to precedent and evidence-based decision-making.” He concluded by exhorting all lawyers to find their own ways to engage in public service, such as by “restoring integrity and trust to public leadership—whatever vision you have to make yourself useful, each of us has a special responsibility to answer the call to public service. The time is now.”
Well said!"

Friday, February 7, 2014

Jay Leno’s Last ‘Tonight Show,’ Take Two: Stars, and a few tears | Variety: "Leno’s apparent emotional health and single-minded devotion to performing — harboring a struggling standup comic’s mentality and work ethic, even at the pinnacle of his career — may have made him less interesting than some of latenight’s other personalities and his comedy contemporaries (Letterman among them). Yet his aw-shucks demeanor — despite getting a second shove toward the door while sitting atop the latenight ratings — both appears to have served him well and simultaneously made this baton pass seem less momentous. It also made his show of emotion as surprising as it was touching."

The Party of Less Work - Rich Lowry - POLITICO Magazine: "The old jobs crisis was people not having jobs; the new jobs crisis is people having to work. The party devoted to combating inequality is now blithely unconcerned about a law discouraging people — especially people down the income scale — from earning more. So much for its championing of economic mobility."

“Opportunity created by affordable, quality health insurance allows families in America to make a decision about how they will work, or if they will work.”

“

He says opportunity. This is what he’s heralding in this achievement, that the government is giving opportunity for people to decide if they want to work. This is the liberals’ ideal of the opportunity society,” Krauthammer said. “Of course, in a free society, you can decide if you want to work, but what Obamacare does, and so the essence of liberalism, is you can choose not to work, and the people who do work end up subsidizing you.”"

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Dana Milbank: Obamacare’s scorekeepers deliver a game-changer - The Washington Post: "he congressional number-crunchers, perhaps the capital’s closest thing to a neutral referee, came out with a new report Tuesday, and it wasn’t pretty for Obamacare. The CBO predicted the law would have a “substantially larger” impact on the labor market than it had previously expected: The law would reduce the workforce in 2021 by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time workers, well more than the 800,000 originally anticipated. This will inevitably be a drag on economic growth, as more people decide government handouts are more attractive than working more and paying higher taxes."

Facebook: ""Twenty years ago, I avoided going on a trip that I didn't want to go on because I broke my leg. I had only agreed to the trip in the first place because I wanted to avoid making my father mad. Afterward, I had this sudden realization that it had taken me breaking my leg to finally do what I wanted to do. And I've lived life on my own terms ever since.""

Cafe Hayek — where orders emerge: "Capitalism supplies artists not only with abundant materials and media for producing and sharing their works, but also with the freedom and personal space for them to create. In stark contrast, communism necessarily prohibits would-be artists from pursuing their muses. All means of production under communism are owned by the state, and, hence, remain off-limits to artists whose individual plans do not mesh with the central plan. The nature of a central plan requires that the state regiment each individual to his or her assigned part in that plan. You can’t have a working central plan if everyone is free to choose his or her own job or free to produce whatever he or she fancies. If a longshoreman under communism wants instead to work full-time as a poet, too bad. He can’t. And if one of the state’s official poets wants to criticize the regime, too bad. She can’t – unless, of course, she’s prepared to be executed."

Taking the IRS Fifth - WSJ.com: "Asked by Fox News's Bill O'Reilly whether there was any corruption in the IRS handling of groups applying for tax-exempt status, Mr. Obama said "absolutely not," adding that the policy that delayed hundreds of applications by conservative groups was a case of "some bone-headed decisions out of a local office." By local he means Cincinnati.

The President's clairvoyance is extraordinary, since neither the Justice Department nor Congress has finished investigations. The congressional probes have conducted interviews with dozens of employees from the IRS and Treasury Department and reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. They have already revealed that the tea-party cases, including intrusive questionnaires, were systematically reviewed by lawyers in the IRS Washington office."

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

The Corner | National Review Online: "I also wonder about the possibility of technological solutions. A question I’ve put out there before: If we developed a drug that offered all of the pleasures of cocaine or heroin, to such a point that it was an effective substitute for them, but entailed absolutely no physical or psychological side effects (for the sake of the hypothetical, say it would only offer one four-hour high, once a week, no matter how much you took), would that be a good thing or a catastrophe? I honestly don’t know how a rational actor should feel about that. "

This line of thought has also triggered me to think about why we consider drugs immoral. Apparently, a new marijuana plant allows users to get some of the therapeutic benefits of marijuana without giving them a high. Which sounds great, until you stop and wonder, is there anything wrong with feeling high? Is the problem with drug use that the drugs make us feel good, or that they produce deleterious side effects?